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Jabari Parker suffered one of the most crushing injuries of last season, tearing his ACL a second time after making 51 appearances for the Milwaukee Bucks. The team already had to survive the first half of the season with starting shooting guard Khris Middleton on the shelf after suffering a freak injury of his own, but now the team was missing part of a dynamic one-two punch that spelled the plans for the franchise moving forward.
Yet Parker hasn't relented upon adversity, citing this recovery process as a blessing in disguise and part of the road to something more — the road to greatness.
“The things that I'm going through is creating some type of greatness,” Parker told Rob Mahoney of Sports Illustrated. “What better way to learn things than for them to be hard?”
The 22-year-old would be overcoming his second major surgery in his first three seasons in the league after suffering this same injury 25 games into his rookie year as the second overall pick of the 2014 NBA Draft.
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“This type of rehab, this type of journey that I'm living through right now is necessary for my development,” said Parker. “It's trying to teach me that it can all be taken in an instant.”
Parker came back from injury the next season and by the summer of 2016, he was honing his jumper, going from a career 25 percent three-point shooter to making a reliable 36.5 percent from deep — a major improvement in his development as an all-around player.
Yet despite the long rehabilitation process, Parker remains poised to take it as carefully as possible this time around, hoping to return at 100 percent and help the Bucks in their quest for cracking the Eastern Conference elite.
“I want to wait as long as I can,” he said, “just so I know where I am and I don't have to rush nothing.”
